Asynchronous Communication

I've been maintaining this list privately for a while but wanted to get it out in the world to potentially spark some collaboration, communication, and writing.

Why does this need to be considered?

• Asynchronous communication is primarily written communication (The Future of Work is Written) but goes beyond that
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Diagrams
  • Emojis
• Extra time spent communicating can feel like wasted time
  • taken to the extreme, 100% communication or 100% building would not achieve the right things
• Introvert types can shine as async communicators, taking pressure off of them during face-to-face meetings
• Communication happens in places we expect AND everywhere in between
• The right amount of extra time spent on async communications can save tons of time on the long tail and meetings as well
• Makes a record that can be found later; this can be done well or poorly
• Asynchronous communication across cultures, groups, teams needs to take the tone-free nature of async written communication into account.
• The most challenging part of the transition to remote work is changes to how we communicate
  • Hyperactive hive mind
• David McCullough’s beautiful words:
  • To write is to think, and to write well is to think well.
• "Intellectual detritus" is valuable if it can be referenced and re-used
  • David Perrell on Indie Hackers
  • "producing artifacts"
• Everlasting problems
  • How to record decisions
  • How to record artifact data
  • How to avoid rot
  • How to avoid overload

The goal (aka Doing It Right)

• improve understanding within the team and without; have a clear place to point common questions
• allow team members to unfocus from communication channels for periods of time; mile markers with a clear indication of where a certain decision process is at
• balance of recording time versus retrieval time; save versus search
• foster a bias for action

Notes

• This was written in a specific year with specific technologies; try to abstract to what's current and what's likely to stick around for a while
• Try to think about tools not as a specific software but what what that tool enables and how it's typically used; the techniques here are how to use those systems better
  • Many short messages with an expectation of a short turn-around time (Slack)
  • Longer messages with a longer turn around time (email)
• Want to provide advice for folks working in a great environment, as well as folks working in not-so-great ones; good communication can happen anywhere
• This was written by a software person but the lessons and techniques are applicable anywhere; asynchronous communication is important in almost every job and only increasing as remote work does
• This is not meant to make you paranoid or overly cautious when communicating; these techniques will help you avoid mistakes that are invisible and, with practice, they become second-nature; make the invisible visible
• There are great lessons to be learned from marketers and copywriters but this book is about effective teamwork, not promotion
• This is not about some vague idea of professionalism. I’m not going to tell you to watch your punctuation during a chat or not to use emoji or any other number of cultural things you’ll need to navigate on your own. I want you to say enough, but not too much, to the right people using the best format to accomplish what you want to get done.

Consider: Audience

• Everyone
  • Clarity and simplicity
  • Storytelling
    • Storytelling brain on google
    • use cases
    • user stories
  • Metaphors, analogies, examples
    • David Perrell on Indie Hackers
• Specialist to specialist
  • Code reviews
  • In-code documentation
  • Jargon, short cuts
  • Watch for inclusive language
    • Camile Fournier on explanation ...
• Specialist to leadership
  • May or may not understand the technical details and don't want to
• Specialist to specialist-adjacent
  • May or may not understand the technical details but need to
• Specialist to non-specialist
  • Technical details are irrelevant
• Combination/mixed

Consider: Purpose/JTBD

• Exploration/Discovery
• Planning support
• Record keeping/event documenation
  • Meeting notes
  • Incident responses
  • Retroactives
• News/announcements
• Response needed
• Instructional
  • https://documentation.divio.com
    • Tutorials - learning
    • How-To - problem
    • Explanation - understanding
    • Reference - information
• Visibility

Consider: In-between

• hierarchical relationship between participants
  • Bi-directional
  • Thoughtful responses from "higher ups" says a lot
• people still try to read tone here
  • Thanks for the Feedback: leaky things
• who is included can be a signal
  • Meeting invite list
  • Credits and thank yous
  • List of authors
• how long it took to respond (or any response at all)
  • Sometimes a quick acknowledgement is enough
  • Not responding could be a clear message, intensional or not
• how short/long the response is
  • If I ask 3 questions and you answer 1, how does that look?
  • Conversely, if I ask the CTO 3 questions I could have Googled, how does that look?
• what was said is clear, what was meant is missing
• how in-depth the document goes; length
  • Maybe it needs to be long, maybe not
• how much communication is happening at the time
  • Asking for a document review on a Friday after 2 incidents ...
• specific word choices
  • Inclusive language
• day or time sent
  • Sunday morning Slack message from VPs ...
• metadata like title, tags, etc
• visibility

Techniques

• Shitty first drafts and outlines
  • To do list
  • Lets you take inventory
  • Early validation
  • Organization
• Writing only for yourself
  • Journaling
  • First drafts
  • Bain dumps
• Re-reading, rewriting, editing
  • line by line, sentence by sentence
  • what’s the ROI of the next re-read?
  • what’s the desired outcome?
• Taking notes
  • Meeting notes
  • Presentation notes
• Complete responses
  • Take inventory
  • Re-read in context
• Compilation/curation
  • Easy to find and parse records
  • Can be part of larger documents
• Pruning
• Being helpful
  • Ask: is this helpful?
  • Could it be helpful for others?
• Diagrams/graphics
• Polls/Surveys
• Repetition
  • Don't take it personally
• Due dates
• Asking for feedback
  • There is nothing wrong with asking for help!
• Over-explain; teach
  • Often there are people in your audience who do not understand critical parts of what’s being communicated (might be embarrassing); educate
• Formatting
  • Headlines for scanning and linking
  • Ordered lists for in-order steps
  • Unordered lists for options
  • Code format for machine names
  • Bold for specific labels
• Synchronous
• Sharing Early vs. Bias for Action
• Demos
  • Video or in-person
  • Bias for action
• Positioning
  • "Positioning is starting where the reader is, and bringing them to where you want them to go" James Clear
• Compression
  • "... the most potent form of an idea in the fewest words possible." James Clear

Format/Channels

• Long-lived documents
  • Decide whether this is a picture in time or kept up-to-date
  • Consider multiple short documents
• Quick, early documents
  • Indicate this somehow for future use
  • Could expand into bigger documents or just support
  • Spikes
  • Decisions
• Blog posts
  • Chronological order
  • Jumping off point
• Documentation
  • ... splat all the types
• Code
  • Functional
  • Test
  • Self-documenting
  • Clear vs clever
• Chat
• SMS
• Email
• Comments
• Forums
• Video/animation
  • Demos
  • Animated GIFs
• Audio
• OSS